fairy talen.adj.
/ˈfɛːrɪ teɪl/, U.S. /ˈfɛri ˌteɪl/ A. n.
1. A tale about fairies; a tale set in fairyland; esp. any of various short tales having folkloric elements and featuring fantastic or magical events or characters. Also as a mass noun: such stories collectively or as a genre. Cf. fairy story n. 1.Classed as a type of folk tale, many fairy tales exist in various versions deriving from long traditions of oral storytelling. Often stylized in form and having a structure following certain general conventions, they are sometimes associated with idealized happy endings or viewed as stories for children.
ΘΚΠ
the world > the supernatural > supernatural being > fairy or elf > [noun] > lore surrounding
fairyism1707
fairy tale1749
faerie tale1752
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > marvellous tale > [noun] > about fairies
fairy story1687
fairy tale1749
faerie tale1752
1635 J. Swan Speculum Mundi ix. §1. 472 And as for the Fayrie tales of the Lamiæ, they nothing belong to this creature: neither be those common reports of Sphinx his riddle, any other then fables.
1716 tr. M.-C. D'Aulnoy Hist. Tales of Fairies 160 Numrous Examples of this kind, Who Reads these Fairy-Tales, may find, If his own Life can't call to mind.
1749 H. Walpole Let. 3 May in Corr. (1960) XX. 46 It..was by far the..prettiest spectacle I ever saw: nothing in a fairy tale ever surpassed it.
1750 H. Brooke (title) A new collection of fairy tales.
1819 J. Keats Let. 21 Sept. (1958) II. 173 Dont forget to tell Reynolds of the fairy tale Undine.
1878 Westm. Rev. Oct. 587 The good old Mother Goose stories and the delightful fairy-tales of Perrault and Grimm..are books fit for children.
1915 Sat. Evening Post 6 Nov. 63/2 It was as if, as in the fairytale, all were to live happily ever afterward.
1979 M. Kolbenschlag Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-bye 3 Fairy tales are the bedtime stories of the collective consciousness.
2006 S. N. McCarthy & C. S. Hutz Preventing Teen Violence 31 Remember the fairy tale about Hansel and Gretel?
2. Something resembling a fairy tale in being unreal or incredible, or in having an idealized happy ending. Also: a fabricated story; a lie. Cf. fairy story n. 2.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > knowledge > conformity with what is known, truth > disregard for truth, falsehood > [noun] > a falsehood, lie
liec900
leasingc1000
falsehoodc1290
falsedom1297
gabbinga1300
fablec1300
follyc1300
fittenc1440
untruthc1449
crackc1450
fallacy1481
falsity1557
falsedict1579
untroth1581
crackera1625
flam1632
mendacity1646
fairy story1692
false1786
whid1794
gag1805
wrinkle1819
reacher1828
cram1842
untruism1845
crammer1861
inveracity1864
bung1882
fairy tale1896
mistruth1897
post-and-rails1945
pork pie1973
porky1985
society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > narrative or story > types of narrative or story generally > [noun] > false or foolish
spellc888
triflea1250
truffc1430
tale of a roasted horse1532
fairy story1687
pipe story1890
fairy tale1896
pishogue1931
1671 Bp. S. Parker Def. Eccl. Politie vii. 578 Were there never any such men in the World as Iohn Knox, Iohn of Leyden, and I. O? Or are all the Stories that are recorded of them fairy-tales and Romances?
1732 Dissuasive from entering into Holy Orders 12 Men are left to their own Sentiments, and not forced to join in the Old Wives Fables, and Fairy Tales of Nurses and Monks.
1881 R. L. Stevenson Virginibus Puerisque 89 I do not greatly pride myself on having outlived my belief in the fairy tales of Socialism.
1896 G. Ade Artie xiii. 117 Guess what they train on... Cocoanut pie. That ain't no fairy tale, neither.
1900 Daily Tel. 4 July 10/2 Mr. Kruger..has told a Chicago journalist one of his pretty little fairy tales, the only truth in which is that some burghers are again taking up arms.
1957 M. Kennedy Heroes of Clone iv. vi. 269 Why should I back up this fairy-tale of yours, just to save your face?
1990 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 8 Aug. 29/5 Her fairytale began at 15 when a group of school friends sent her snapshots to Dolly magazine.
2011 Atlanta Jrnl.-Constit. (Nexis) 25 June b2 There are rules to what can be admitted as evidence, and ridiculous fairy tales and lies are not allowed!
B. adj. (chiefly attributive).
Having the qualities associated with fairy tales; magical, incredible; idealized. Cf. fairy story adj.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > goodness and badness > quality of being good > perfection > [adjective] > ideal
ideal1609
dreamlike1615
abstract1625
preterpluperfect1652
idealized1810
goldena1817
pluperfect1831
dream1884
fairy-tale-ish1884
dreamy1892
fairy tale1904
pluterperfect1908
fairy story1913
1904 E. Post Flight of Moth vii. 113 The picnic spot selected was a perfect fairy-tale place—woods, moss, rocks, a rushing brook.
1917 V. Eliot Let. 22 Oct. in T. S. Eliot Lett. (1988) I. 202 The farm is quite ideal, a sort of fairy tale farm.
1971 Daily Tel. 16 Jan. 20/3 A full moon then added its light to the fairy-tale scene.
1989 Best 14 Apr. 72/1 The Moselle Valley with its fairytale castles and picturebook villages is rich in the kind of atmosphere the package brochure clichés could never quite encapsulate.
2010 J. W. Ocker New Eng. Grimpendium 165 The whole thing sounds too fairy tale to be true.
Compounds
(Usually with hyphen or as one word.) C1. General attributive and objective, as fairy-tale hero, fairy-tale heroine, fairy-tale writer, etc.
ΚΠ
1808 Monthly Rev. 56 App. 541 In an oriental tale, the Fairies or Genii must be introduced..: but, alas! our fairy-tale days are passed.
1812 S. H. Burney Traits of Nature II. v. 137 The sight of these great rooms..put me immensely in mind of some of the Fairy-tale heroines I have met with.
1825 M. M. Sherwood Lady of Manor III. xiv. 56 I had also a fairy-tale book.
1857 tr. J. Grimm in tr. A. Dietrich Russ. Pop. Tales p. viii How and when this story fell into the hands of a Russian fairy-tale writer will perhaps never be ascertained.
1892 Sat. Rev. 9 July 50/2 The benevolence of a fairy-tale king.
1919 F. Dell Were you ever Child? v. 49 The fairy-tale hero is confronted with an impossible task.
1962 W. H. Auden Dyer's Hand (1963) 212 There is only one fairy-tale motif, to my knowledge, that contains an element of inner conflict.
1987 M. M. Tatar Hard Facts Grimm's Fairy Tales iii. 79 Psychoanalyzing a fairy-tale plot is tantamount to psychoanalyzing a fairy-tale character.
2009 J. Schenkar Talented Miss Highsmith vii. 84 The infant Pat imagined Stanley to be a kind of fairy-tale ogre.
C2.
fairy-tale ending n. a perfect, happy, often simplistic ending or resolution to a story, resembling those often found in fairy tales; also in extended use.Frequently with reference to the convention of ending fairy tales with formulaic phrases affirming the continued happiness of the protagonists; cf. happily ever after at happily adv. Phrases.
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1854 Househ. Words 25 Feb. 26/1 I should not have been sorry to have had the old fairy-tale ending affixed to this true story, ‘And they lived together very happily for ever after’.
1876 E. C. Clayton Eng. Female Artists I. i. 7 Then we lose sight of her, with only the vague old fairy tale ending, that she ‘lived many years in great..esteem with all the Court, and died here, rich and honoured.’
1907 P. J. Hartog & A. H. Langdon Writing of Eng. iv. 54 Although the class liked the story.., and were inclined to approve of its fairy-tale ending, some one at last remarked that perhaps Dick's cure was a little sudden.
1940 Washington Post 5 July 13/1 As a measure of insurance for the fairy-tale ending, ‘they lived happily ever afterward’, it will behoove the bride to turn her thoughts to..delicious and well-balanced meals.
2012 Sun (Nexis) 4 Dec. 49 [He] was denied a fairytale ending to his Test career when dismissed for eight in his final top-level innings.
fairy-tale prince n. a prince in a fairy tale; (in extended use) an idealized (young) man; cf. Prince Charming n.
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1844 W. M. Thackeray Barry Lyndon ii. i, in Fraser's Mag. Sept. 359 Is it not just that the lives of this class should be described by the student of human nature as well as the actions of those fairy-tale princes, those perfect impossible heroes, whom our writers love to describe?
1856 New Monthly Mag. Apr. 468 His dress,..his manners, all was perfect, and he seemed to realise some fairy-tale prince.
1954 Life 11 Jan. 93 (heading) A helpful Golux enables a fairy-tale prince to escape a gleeping Todal and win a lovely princess.
2005 O: Oprah Mag. (Nexis) Jan. 51 [She] was swept into an affair with then president John F. Kennedy—perhaps the ultimate fairy-tale prince.
fairy-tale princess n. a princess in a fairy tale; (in extended use) an idealized (young) woman.
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1843 Leicester Chron. 21 Jan. 4/3 The beauteous innocence of a fairy-tale princess.
1867 Littell's Living Age 14 Dec. 697/1 [She] stood a fair chance of being spoiled, what with suddenly finding herself transformed from a schoolroom Cinderella to a fairy-tale princess.
1909 E. C. Mayne Enchanters of Men 298 A beautiful unhappy lady, imprisoned, like any fairytale Princess, in a great desolate castle.
2010 L. Stewart Husband & Wife 296 The dream girl part I wasn't used to. I was nobody's idea of an unattainable ideal, a fairy-tale princess.
Derivatives
ˈfairy-tale-ish adj. (somewhat) characteristic of or resembling a fairy tale; = sense B.
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1884 Boston Daily Advertiser 28 Mar. 4/5 Hofmann..wrote the pretty, fairy-tale-ish music of the ‘Cinderella’ which the Cecilia sang at an earlier concert.
1900 E. T. Fowler Farringdons xiv. 272 It would be such fun to be called a ‘Red Bonnet’ or a ‘Green Griffin’, or some other nice fairy-tale-ish name.
2003 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 29 May 9/3 The fairy-taleish Gothic buildings.
ˈfairy-tale-like adj.
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1826 Belle Assemblée Jan. 13/2 Marbled fountains..completed the novel, fairy-tale-like spectacle.
1906 J. Le Gallienne tr. P. Nansen Love's Trilogy 284 There is nothing fairy-tale-like nor fantastic about Rough-Hill, but its beauty is real enough.
2008 Washington Post (Nexis) 22 Mar. c7 How do you reconcile your past idea of love—admittedly naive, fairy-tale-like notions—with a more realistic version?
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2013; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.adj.1635